


Greatest Fears

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [34]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonic Possession, Demonstuck, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, bad magic mental shit (again), davesprite gets torn up, gore tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-27 05:45:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16696576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: This was written in response to a prompt someone on tumblr sent me, specifically "Demonstuck gang is cursed into seeing their worst fears- what happens?"The answer is,very bad shit.





	1. Chapter 1

"This shit's another dead end, babe." 

"I don't think so." 

"No?" You stop yourself halfway through sliding your knives back into their holsters, glancing over at Grey. "You feel something?"

"I...don't know." He still looks human, but his eyes are shimmering red, almost flickering. When he meets your gaze he shakes his head, exhaling heaviling and closing his eyes. "Jake picked this tip out; he's not usually wrong." 

"Yeah, unless he's one hundred percent sure he's right. And he kind of was this time, so..." 

"It's not worth betting on and you know it; there could be something in one of the rooms we didn't check–D, are you listening?" 

Okay, so you're not really listening. You're already distracted, which isn't all that surprising considering that you're still on combat alert despite the fact that you're pretty damn sure there's not really any reason to be. What the hell is it about churches? Like, fuck the religious symbolism; you're pretty sure they stripped that out along with almost everything else. This place is empty, stripped of anything of monetary or aesthetic value, nothing here but bare floors and broken windows that've been so inexpertly boarded up that a bird could fly in through the gaps between the boards, and it's still...impressive. 

Beautiful? Yeah, maybe. 

"Grey?" 

"What?" 

"We should buy a church." 

"...we should _what._ " Grey opens his eyes soley to stare at you in confusion. He looks like a big dork right now, mildly ridiculous and pretty damn funny, enough so that you can't help but laugh. 

The laughter dies abruptly when something stings the back of your neck. 

"Ow–fuck!" One of your knives abruptly clatters on the floor as you instinctively slap at the little bite of pain. It's not a lot–feels like a wasp sting, bee, fuck, maybe even just a bigass fireant–but you don't find a bug. No, you find something small and hard, what feels like over half of it buried in your neck. 

It's rough enough that you can get a grip on what's not under your skin, though, and you do the eminently reasonable thing. You grab the fucker and pull until it comes out. 

Which hurts like _fuck._ The thing's got barbs on the end stuck in you, and it doesn't want to come out. Not that that stops you; a second later you're staring at what kind of looks like the quill from a porcupine, a three-inch spine. It's not the grey-brown that you'd expect from an actual porcupine, though; this thing is bright blue, patterned with darker spots that move as you stare at them, like the shadows of leaves in the wind. 

Fuck, that's magic. And it was in _you,_ which means something is probably about to happen and you're not going to like it at all. Like–

Grey gasps and slaps your hand hard enough to send the spine flying. 

"What the fuck–" you start, and then stop as he grabs your shoulders with the kind of crushing force that you've always known he's capable of and never felt, not directly. God help you, but for a second you're certain that he's been stung with something too, something more violent than whatever you got. If you got anything at all; it _could_ be a dud... "Grey!"

"D, listen to me–something's going to happen." (Only the honest fear in his voice stops you from replying to that with _yeah, no shit Sherlock._ The fear in his voice, and the way that you can see that same fear on his face despite the fact that his eyes've gone fully, glitteringly faceted now.) "It's going to seem very fucking real, but I swear to you that it won't be, I promise you it's not going to be real–you need to remember that, no matter what happens, sweetheart. _Please._ " 

"Grey, what's going on–" 

He talks over you like you didn't even speak, like he's running out of time. "Just remember that it's not real, it'll end, none of it's real and I need you to come back to me, D, please–" 

"Babe, I'm not going anywhere–" 

Grey cuts you off this time by leaning down and kissing you, and even as confused (and yeah, fine, you're scared too now) as you are, there's no way you can't kiss him back. 

The alarm goes off and jerks you awake before you can pull back, and you spit out an obscenity at it as you roll over to hit the button to turn the fucker off. Just your fucking luck; the _one_ time that you have a great dream about a hot guy that _doesn't_ hop right the fuck into the enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying experience of dream sex, it gets cut off right in the fucking middle. 

Figures. 

The alarm is still buzzing, because _apparently_ you moved the damn thing further over so you can't just reach out and smack it without fully waking up. You sit up and hit the silence button on the little clock, glaring at it for a second and then frowning at it, because it's a full fifteen minutes before you should have the alarm set for. You have no idea why; nothing's happening today, right? 

Damn, were you drunk last night? You don't _feel_ like you were drunk last night. That's a very distinct feeling. You're not hungover. What the hell– 

_You have a nice dream, meatbag?_

It's been years–no, _decades_ –since that voice spoke in your head, but you fucking _freeze_ when you hear it. God, you never forgot what it felt like in there, not really. 

_Of course you wouldn't...we've been here before and all this time, haven't we? You just haven't felt us, not where the other one put us...it's been so_ very _long, but we've found our way out._ Finally. 

No. Bro didn't put that goddamn thing anywhere. He killed it. You know he did. 

_He trapped us. Inside you...unfortunately. If only he'd taken us on himself; we'd've had a_ partner! _He always hated the little red-eyes...maybe not you or your sweet brother, but it wouldn't take much convincing to get him to change his mind on that. Pity. Now we just have_ you. 

_We suppose that's for the best. Twice the pain._

You open your mouth to scream a warning for anyone within earshot, and the demon in your head coils around your mind and bears down. Just like the first time, there's no way you can fight. 

Your mouth snaps shut, teeth catching your lip and filling your mouth with the metallic taste of blood. The little sting of pain ain't nearly enough to let you throw the thing in your head off even for a second; if anything, it tightens its hold, coiling around the sensation and drinking it down. 

_Mmmm....not enough._

Oh, god. No. 

_Who's here, meatbag? The diviner? He's not used to being hurt, we know; his lover cares for him, keeps him out of the line of fire as well he can; it'll be such a rare taste to take from him, sugar and honey...your sweet brother? We nearly broke you with him last time, and we barely made you touch him; he'll give us_ so _much more now. Little red-eyes?_

You can feel the thing digging in your memories. It's fucking horrible, like having someone reach into your chest and shift around your organs. 

_Oh...he's found a demon, has he? We'll have to kill that one quick, but watching him scream for it should make up for that, won't it? I wonder if he'll manage to will himself to die._

_We'll see._

And you will. You know you will; the demon works your body like a puppet, every movement somehow exactly the level of natural that you yourself would manage, were you in control. It's gotten better since last time; they're not going to know anything's wrong until it's too fucking late. 

You still can't make any kind of impact on its control. That much hasn't changed since last time. You _remember_ how much you wanted to make something happen, make it stop, make it take the gun away from Dirk's forehead. You can remember screaming inside your head, begging the bastard to kill you instead, hurt you until it had what it wanted. Anything, so long as it let your kid go. 

This time, you move from fighting for control to begging for mercy for them a hell of a lot faster than before. The puppeteer just laughs silently like silk sliding over your bones, and walks you out of the room. 

The worst possible person's perched on the back of the couch. Literally perched; it's Davesprite, chirping softly to himself as he taps at his phone. 

_Ahhh. What a prize...better than the sweet one or red-eyes, we think. This one's younger, already been hurt more, and you love him, meatbag. Don't you? Your baby brother, the most precious one. Will he be the one to give us wine-sweet despair first, or will that be you?_

No! 

"Yo, kiddo. You're up early, huh?" God, the fucker sounds just like you, and it knows everything you do. "Bad dreams again?" 

And Davesprite doesn't sense anything, obviously, because all he does is glance up at you for a second and then return his attention to the phone, shrugging slightly and shifting his wings for balance. "Not that bad...I think I woke up Dave, though, so I figured I might as well get up and let him sleep. Not like I got any kind of circadian rythm anyway, right?" 

"Eh, you coulda slept. Dave'd be fine." All your willpower can't stop the puppeteer from flexing your wrist, sending the knife strapped to your forearm sliding down neatly into your palm. Fuck, why isn't Davesprite looking at you? If he looked he might see, he might have time–

_No more time, meatbag._

Davesprite cries out in surprise as you step up behind him and hook your arm around his neck to drag him off his perch. Surprise is all it is at first, though; there's no fear in the squawk. You can feel his wings straining to spread, pinned as they are between his slight form and your chest; given half a chance, he'll be able to get free. There's no way you can hold him for long. 

The puppeteer knows that as well as you do, though. It raises the knife in your hand, slashes a cut across Davesprite's face, across one of his _eyes_ –fuck, no, it can't do that, _you_ can't do that, you can't– 

The cockatrice doesn't just scream in pain. He _keens_ , less like a dying animal than like the few true banshees you've encountered, a sound full of pain and terror and, worst of all, _betrayal._ When the demon pulls your hands away from him, he makes it maybe four steps before he falls to his knees and covers his wounded face with both hands. 

The demon leaves him there like that for long enough that you begin to hope that maybe, just _maybe_ , that was enough. Maybe he's satisfied with this, and awful as it is there's so many ways it could be worse, maybe the fucker's satisfied with the pain that you can _feel_ it drinking in, maybe– 

_This is just an appetizer, meatbag. We're nowhere near done...we just need to savor the taste. We're still so very hungry..._

The force of your need to scream actually makes an impact on the puppeteer's control, but all it does is make the air catch in your throat. It doesn't stop the fucker from tossing the knife from your right hand to your left, lunging down to shove Davesprite to the floor and pinning one wing down with your free hand. 

Oh, no. No. Seeing the blood smear off your hand onto those soft pale orange feathers is bad enough; you can't even think of–

The demon brings the knife down, and Davesprite screams again. 

The cut doesn't sever his wing. It wasn't meant to; you can feel the puppeteer's intent as clearly as you'd know your own, like it's purposefully telegraphing every moment of this in advance. You know that the strike was meant to ruin something of the structure of Davesprite's wing, immobilize it as painfully as possible for what's to come, and that's exactly what it did. 

When you cut his other wing the same way, Davesprite sobs out your name, and for a moment the demon coils back down to wherever it was between now and the last time, the time you almost killed Dirk. For a moment you have control, and you use that to hurl the knife away, scramble off the bloodied kid underneath you, open your mouth to tell him you're sorry, so fucking sorry, tell him you'd never do this, tell him this isn't _you_ – 

Before you can say anything, the puppeteer seizes your strings again. It laughs in your head at your attempts to get rid of the weapon even as it draws the other one. 

_Poor little meatbag. Poor little stupid meatbag, there's nothing you can do but watch us._

And you watch. 

You watch, because you don't have a choice. There's nothing in your body that you control; you can't close your eyes, can't choose to look away as the puppeteer slams Davesprite to the floor again and pins him there with his face pressed into the bloodied carpet. You fucking _watch,_ as your own hands start slicing apart your little brother's wing apart like you're butchering a turkey. 

He stops screaming after maybe a minute, but you're pretty sure that's only because he's bitten his tongue or lip. The sounds he's making now have a wet, choked quality, like he can barely get them out around a mouthful of blood; both you and the demon know that kind of sound. 

_He won't die. We won't let him die, not yet._

The confidence in that statement fills you with more dread than you can really process, because it means you're nowhere near done. 

The puppeteer pulls your hands back and tilts your head, considering your handiwork so far. Then it makes a decision, flicks blood off the knife, raises it again– 

Something slams you backwards, and your head hits the wall. No, not the wall, the floor, and from the pain radiating through your skull this isn't the first time you've hit it either. Then again, _everything_ aches right now, pain like you strained every muscle in your body. 

There's blood in your mouth, but no wetness on your hands, and you open your eyes to the sight of dust glimmering in broken bars of sunlight under ceilings higher than any at the safehouse. You get the relief from that for maybe three heartbeats before the still-present _reality_ of what you just did hits you like a bullet. 

"D!" 

Grey scoops you up off the floor and into his lap even as you try to curl in on yourself; you feel his hands shaking as he pulls you up to his chest and hugs you close, the words spilling out of him still soaked in that fear that ain't quite familiar coming from him. "Sweetheart, love, D, I'm so sorry, so sorry, love, beautiful one, please don't leave me, stay with me, come back to me, D, D–" 

He only stops when you shift in his arms to wrap your own around his neck, and for a moment you worry that's because you're clinging so tight you're hurting him, but he–he's _solid._ He's there, he's _real_ , and you need that reality so fucking bad right now because nothing about what you just did is fading. That feels real too, and you can't bring yourself to fully believe that it was nothing but a vision. 

For a minute there's no sond in the ruined church but that of your uneven breathing and Grey softly chanting your name. It takes you that minute–maybe more than a minute–to force yourself into speaking. 

"Grey–" 

"I'm here, love, I–" 

"Davesprite. He–where–fuck, Grey, I hurt him, I would've killed him, his wings, his _eye_ –" 

"D, no. No." Grey pulls back enough that you can look up into his face for the first time since you woke up, and _fuck_ he's bleeding, there's a rip in his shirt and blood on the dark skin underneath the fabric, blood soaked in across his shoulder staining the fabric deep red. When you gasp he shakes his head, catching your hands as you move to touch the wound. "It's all right, he's all right, I swear to you–" 

"I did that to you, I'm so sorry–" It's the only explanation you can think of; Grey doesn't get hurt in fights. Not like that. Nothing he doesn't trust can get that close to him, you _know_ that, and your sight blurs with tears even as he shake his head. 

"D, sweetheart, you haven't hurt anyone–" 

"I broke Davesprite's wings and fucking tore them apart, I remember that, Derrick fucking lied to me and the demon was never gone, Grey, it's still in me, it's in me _now_ –" 

"D, no!" Grey grabs your hands before you can get them up to your face to try to rip the fucker out of yourself; you can't bring yourself to even try to struggle. "It's not there, love, darling, I swear to you that it's not there. There's no demon." 

"But–" 

"None of it was real. Please, just–" 

"I fucking felt it, Grey, it was real, it _still_ feels real–" 

"I know it does, love, mine felt real too, it _always_ feels real; it's meant to be real enough to–to kill–" 

Grey's voice breaks and he shakes his head, hugging you close again. You know you couldn't get free of him even if you wanted to, but that is the exact opposite of what you need right now; you wrap your arms around his waist and lean in, pressing your face into the dry part of his chest, above his heart, and breathing in as deep as you can. 

Cinnamon. Blood. _Warmth,_ his heartbeat under your skin. There's nothing like him, nothing on this earth, and your breath comes out as a sob. 

Warm wetness drips into your hair and you lean back to see that even though Grey's gone silent, there's tears covering his face. God, have you ever seen him cry like this before?

"Oh, babe." When you reach up to wipe at the tears, he closes his eyes. "What the fuck did it do to you? What the fuck _was_ it?" 

"Something that eats despair." Grey tilts his head into your touch, his voice almost steady again. (Almost.) "It–I don't even know if this was the same one from before; it looked the same, exactly the same, but it's been so _fucking_ long..." 

"This is something you've seen before." 

"Darling, there's not a lot I _haven't_ seen before. Not on this continent, anyway." 

"Mmm. You're dodging the question." 

For a moment, Grey doesn't answer that at all. Doesn't even move, just...sits there with you gently brushing tears off his face. If he chooses to not answer you, you know you're not going to push it. 

But after that moment he say, very slowly, "It...killed people I knew. A long time ago. It gives you what you fear most, feeds off the pain and despair." 

That...makes a lot of sense. Also probably says something about you, that you don't know whether your greatest fear was being controlled by that fucking thing again, or killing the people you care about, the ones you're supposed to protect. 

Or maybe part of it was not having Grey. He wasn't there in the vision, after all, other than as a dream. Fuck, you can't handle that thought. Not right now. 

He opens his eyes, when you loop your arms over his shoulders and kiss him, and he does kiss you back, but after a moment he pulls away to study your face, dark eyes wide and anxious. "Are you going to be all right?" 

"Yeah. Eventually." You sigh and lean against him, and he kisses the top of your head gently. "There's aftershocks, babe, I know you gotta be getting 'em too...you kill it?" 

"I did. We wouldn't be here if I didn't." 

"How bad did it hurt you?" 

"It didn't–oh." One of his hands leaves your back, reaching up instead to touch his injured shoulder. "No. It didn't do that; I did." 

" _Fuck,_ Grey." 

"True physical pain weakens the illusion further than willpower can. I–it seemed real to me, even when I thought I _knew_ –" 

He shudders, hard, and you shift again to tighten your grip on him. "Hey. 'm here, Grey. Right here with you." 

"I know, love, but it still took you." 

Oh. Shit. Okay. You don't know how to answer that; instead you just...hold him, for a minute. More than a minute. A while. You hold him until your mind starts turning over the memories, until you can't bear the mixture of guilt and dread welling up in your chest any longer. 

"...Grey?" 

"Mm." 

"I wanna see that fucker's corpse, okay? Then I wanna go home. I wanna see Davesprite, I wanna calm Dave the fuck down because you _know_ he felt that shit from me, and then I wanna lie down with you and not get up for–" 

Grey goes stiff. "Oh, _damn_." 

"What?" 

"Dave. He picks things up, but this is something that can latch on and _spread,_ D, we need to go–" 

" _Shit!_ " 

Yeah. Time to get home.

* * *

The thing that Grey killed is already decomposing; it fills the small room where he's left it with a sickening sweet/rotten scent that's awful enough that you can't bring yourself to step within four or five feet of the door. Not that you'd really get a better look at the thing if you did; all you can really tell from the pile of slowly-liquefying flesh and spines is that it might have looked something like a vaguely-humanoid porcupine while it was still alive. 

So yeah, up there on the bizzarometer. It's dead as fuck now, though, which is all you really care about at the moment.

* * *

You get through maybe half the drive back without thinking about shit. When you do, you go from "coping just fine" to "shit shit _shit_ pull over before you puke in the truck" in maybe a minute and a half. If that. 

At least you pull over without hitting anything, and at least you get your seatbelt off and the door open before you lose your lunch, though. And Grey leans over and gets ahold of your arm before you overbalance, thank fucking god. 

He holds you in place until your stomach either runs out of shit to send up or decides to cut you a fucking break. Once it does and you've given up on getting the taste out of your mouth by spitting on the grass, you look over and give him a thumb's-up with the arm he isn't holding on to. 

From the concerned look on his face, it ain't very convincing. 

"D, do I need to drive?" 

"Fuck no; you actually give a damn about the speed limit. Speaking of which, cross your fingers that there ain't any cops between here and home..."

* * *

There are not. Also, you discover that the speedometer on the truck goes up to one-twenty for a reason, surprisingly enough; you have a feeling that it might actually be capable of getting up even higher than the numbers on the dial, if you pushed it, but today you ain't pushing anything else. 

It's fast enough. Five minutes after you tell Grey to cross his fingers you pull the truck close enough to the edge of the road that it's probably not a safety hazard, yank the keys out of the ignition and drop them in the cupholder, and almost fall out of the truck in your haste to get to the house as fast as fucking possible. Grey doesn't even have time to get out and help you up before you're on your feet again. 

Davesprite slams into you the second you step into the house, grabbing at your shirt with the kind of urgency that says he'll just fucking climb you like a tree if you don't hold him _right fucking now._ You know how he feels; you pull him up and hug him as close as you possibly can, tight enough that you almost worry you're gonna hurt him. He doesn't seem worried, though. He just buries his face in your shirt and folds his wings in half around you, and god damn but you're not letting him go for a while. Just, no. 

"Hey, kiddo." (Your voice doesn't waver on the second word. Not at all. You're a fucking liar.) "You okay?" The fact that he chirps and hangs on tighter rather than answer sends another nauseating wave of guilt up through your chest. "God, I'm so fucking sorry–" 

"Shut _up,_ " he mumbles. "I'm okay, I just–need you, Hal's fucked up and Dirk's fixing him and Dave's with Karkat and they're both fucked up and they can't handle me too and I–" 

"Hey, it's okay. 'm right here, it's okay." 

"Is Grey–" 

"Right here." Grey shuts the door that you left open and slips around you, reaching down to smooth Davesprite's feathery hair. "Will you be all right with him for a bit?" 

"Yeah, but where're you going–" 

"I need to check how far this spread. Just in case." 

"Yo, don't you dare–" Grey leans down to kiss you, silencing you for that second; then he's headed past you spooky-fast, leaving you standing there to glare after him. "–leave me. God _damn_ it!" 

"Sorry," Davesprite mumbles agains your shirt. 

"No, man, it's not your fault–I'm the one who oughta be sorry, I'm fuckin' patient zero here, this shit's my fuckin' fault–" 

Davesprite pulls back a little to look you in the eyes. His shades are currently AWOL; you're mildly aware that he could theorhetically kill you right now, with just a lil' exertion of willpower. Somehow that possibility ain't even kind of a worry. 

"You and Gale got it worse," he says after a second, and leans back in to lay his head on your shoulder again, going limp in a way that he only does when he's fuckin' exhausted. (As are you, now that you think about it. Stupid fucking side effects.) 

"Where's Gale?" 

"Living room. I think. Unless they moved." 

"Alright, cool...where's everybody else?" 

"Paired up. Dirk and Hal, Dave and Karkat, John and Jake...Jake passed out right after he woke up..." 

"Shit, is he okay?" 

"He said he would be. Then he just kind of...fell." 

"Fuck. Seb and Jr? Trizza?" 

"Weren't here. Didn't get it." 

"You're sure?" 

"Dirk texted Seb and checked on Rose. He called everyone..he panicked." Davesprite shifts a bit as you push the door open with your foot; you look down to see one orange eye open and watching you. "Are you okay?" 

Hmm. You could lie, but nah. Not to your kid. "Kinda. Will be eventually...Gale?" 

They don't actually answer you, but when you step into the room they almost literally jump to their feet from where they were sitting on the couch, staring at you like they expect a fucking attack. When you take a step toward them, they actually flinch.

"...shit, Gale." 

"I'm sorry!" 

...alright, third person to apologize to you after getting hit with the fear magic; you're gonna say that guilt is a side effect. It's almost a relief to know that it's not just you. Great, now you feel guilty about feeling relieved. God fucking dammit...ignore that for a second, focus on what you need to do here. 

"You don't need to be sorry, kid, just–d'you need me to go away, or can I sit in here with you? You know being alone after mind-altering shit ain't a good idea." 

Gale hesitates for what seems like a long time, then gives you a very tiny nod. They still don't move, though, not until you come over and sit down, arranging Davesprite in your lap. He's still limp, so it's not all that hard unless you try to make him let go of your shirt. 

"Damn, he's out cold," you murmur, stroking the soft rusty wingfeathers that grow closest to his body. 

"It, uh. What happened, it fucks you up. Makes you tired." Gale moves to sit down as well, close to you but not touching. When you risk a glance over at them you see that they're focused on the sleeping cockatrice rather than you, mismatched eyes wide and wary. "Jake said–he said sleeping was a good idea."

"Yeah. You're not, huh?" 

They glance at you, realize that you're looking at them, and flinch again as they look away. "It–he said it wasn't real, but it fu–fucking felt real." 

"Yeah. I know it did, trust me–I'm still working on convincing myself there ain't a demon in my head." And that you didn't hurt your kid. That you didn't hurt anyone. 

Gale makes a muffled little noise that almost sounds like a laugh; you manage to not look over at them. Might as well at least try not to spook them any worse than they already are. "Dave said he had the opposite thing. No demon. He, uh. He swapped eyes with Karkat before he was even all the way awake..." 

"I bet he fucking did. Poor guys're gonna be fucked up for a while." You wonder if his fears had Bro in them, as well as not having Karkat. Somehow you're one hundred fucking percent sure they did. "What'd it give you, kid?" 

"I–" They stop and take a shaky breath, hesitating for a second before inching closer to you. "You know I've, uh...killed people." 

"The HDB bastards?" 

"...no, not them...a guy I _knew_ , before I really–I didn't get my magic, I thought stuff just happened, okay? I never meant to–kill him, I just wanted to get _away,_ I swear–" 

"Gale, hey." They don't freeze _or_ flinch when you scoot closer to wrap an arm around their shoulders; you're not sure whether that's because they're too tired to react or because they've just reached their limit for responsiveness. "You're okay. You did what you had to do–" 

"You don't know that! _I_ don't know that! The fucking _magic_ –it let me go through that over and over again, he told me he loved me and I couldn't leave and I walked away and he didn't stop me, he told me I couldn't leave and I didn't use my powers and he _hurt_ me or he didn't hurt me or I ran or I stayed with him and–" 

"Gale, breathe. 's okay. Wasn't real." You sigh and shift closer to them, waiting to make sure they're not going to recoil. (They don't.) "Your big fear's that you made the wrong decisions, huh?" 

"I–maybe...god, that's so fucking selfish..." 

"Nope. You been through hell and done a great fucking job getting out of it, Gale. Now go to sleep." 

Gale glances up at you again, leaning against you just a bit more. "Can I do it here." 

"Course you can. I'm not going anywhere.

* * *

Amazingly, you manage to not pass out before Grey comes to check in on you, maybe half an hour later. He obviously wasn't planning to settle down on the couch with you yet, but when you reach out for him he changes his plans pretty fucking fast, sinking down beside you and wrapping an arm around your shoulders. 

You reach up and pull on his shoulder until he leans in to kiss you. When he pulls away for breath, you tell him, "You need to fucking sleep." 

"No." 

"No like you think you don't need to? Because you do, trust me, you look like shit...where were you, anyway?" 

"Checking on the others." 

"And everyone's okay?"

Grey grimaces, shrugging slightly. "Everyone's _alive._ Kurloz is _furious._ " 

"He got it too, huh?" Shit, that could be an issue later. 

"He got it too. He didn't try to kill me, so we...should be fine." 

"Good, okay. Everyone's okay. Stay with me." He's not going to do that, you can tell that right now, but you have at least one unfair card in your hand. Davesprite is just deeply asleep enough that you can shift him off your lap and onto Grey's, effectively trapping your lover in place. " _Stay._ " 

The tone you use (the same one you'd use on a dog that you knew _wasn't_ Jade shapeshifted into one of her furrier forms) earns you a faint smile and a kiss to the forehead, both of which you're thankful as fuck for. "You know how to make an arguement." 

"I do." 

"I love you." 

"I love you too. Now go the fuck to sleep."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon on Tumblr asked for another chapter and y'know what that's really all it takes to motivate me sometimes

_Hal._

You wake up significantly before Dirk does, but since he's shifted to drape himself over your chest, getting up isn't really an option. Even if you _could_ leave, though, you're not sure if you would. 

The memory of the horrible fucking absence of any sensation is still more fresh than you'd like. The magic hitting you with sensory deprivation is stupid, really; you lived like that for what, a year? More? Dirk didn't figure out how to put your consciousness in your current body overnight, after all. And there's been times since then when you've been forced to return to that state. 

That fucking _awful_ state. 

( _You can't breathe to scream and you don't need to breathe. You can't feel your body. You don't_ have _a body. There's no network to return a response to your desperate queries. No light, no sound, no smell. Nothing. No one. Nothing._ ) 

It shouldn't bother you, but here you are, lying on a cot in Dirk's workroom and thanking whatever deity made him let you drag him here with you before you both passed out. His warm weight on top of you is something to focus on. An anchor to hang on to. 

"Fuck..." Dirk lets your name dissolve into a groan, half-raising his head before just letting it drop back onto your chest. "Hal...loosen up. Too tight." 

"Shit. Sorry." You may have been hanging onto him more tightly than is necessary. "...are you all right, Dirk?" 

"I didn't need my entire system recalibrated to handle overstimulation, so I think I'm doing better than you," he mumbles. Before you can even formulate a response to that that's not instinctively vitriolic, he sighs and shifts a bit, like he's shaking his head without raising it. "God, why am I so fuckin' mean?" 

"In your defense, we can't exactly run diagnostics on you, brother dearest." Should you let go of him so he can get up? Hmm. He hasn't pulled away yet, so...no. You don't have to. "Want to give me an incident report?" 

"...I don't want to think about the incident." That comes out even softer than before, and his hands bear down on your shoulders until you hug him a bit tighter in response. (Not too tight, though.) "It's—my greatest fears appear to be...enjoying being possessed, destroying you, and hurting Jake and John." 

"...ah." 

"Destroying you and being glad you were gone, Hal. Hurting them and _liking_ it. It was like—being in my head and watching myself think, and I fucking loved what I was doing. Jake was begging me to stop, John was bleeding—I don't even know if he was conscious and I didn't give a fuck. I wanted—" 

"Dirk." 

"What." 

"It wasn't you."

"It _was_ me."   
"You weren't the one who wanted that, and if you give this a moment's fucking thought you'll see that." He's going to be stubborn about this, you realize when he raises his head to stare at you. It's funny how you can so easily read that neutral look as the disbelief it is. "Your fear of being a monster doesn't make you one." 

For another moment Dirk keeps staring at you, giving you time to wonder if he's going to keep arguing. In the end, though, he just huffs out a breath and faceplants back down on your chest. "When did Rose start giving you lessons, exactly?" 

You're kind of glad he's not watching your face anymore. That means you can smile up at the ceiling without worrying about his opinion of it. "Eh. You get enough therapy, you pick up the keywords. Plus I think I still know what you need to hear sometimes, even after all this time."

* * *

_Dave._

Karkat drags you out of a dream that tastes like blood, steel, and something sweet and rotten. Maybe you're the one who drags him out of that shit, actually; the two of you have been completely fucking intertwined in the three or four hours since you came out of that fucking magic. 

He falls back into his body as he wakes up, though, and so do you. Thank fuck that you barely have to move to get your arms around him and hold on. And thank fuck that Karkat is maybe even faster than you to do the same thing. 

For a second that's all you do. Just hold him, let him hold you. 

Then, "Fuck, Dave." 

"What?" 

"You're crying." 

" _You're_ crying." That's actually just your reflexive response, but yeah, he is. Like, enough that it thickens his voice, makes it really fucking apparent even when he's only said four words. "Yeah. 'm crying. 's okay. You okay?" 

"I'm okay." 

"Gamzee ain't here, I promise. We ran him off; he's never gonna come back and fuck with us." 

"Your bro's not here either." Karkat pulls you up a bit to that exact place you want to be in, the perfect spot to let you nuzzle into the warmth-edging-into-heat of his throat, where you can feel his pulse just under his skin. "We killed him." 

"Mhm. Twice. You ate him, 'n D fuckin' burned him. I remember...I'm here with you." 

"You are. And I'm here with you. I _feel_ you." 

"Nobody's ever gonna take that away from us. Not for real." 

"Never for real...Dave?" 

"Yeah, I know. I'm still tired." 

"Exactly. Go the fuck back to sleep, dumbass. I'll watch your dreams." 

_Nah. You sleep too, and I'll find you in them._

Karkat answers that only with a wordless surge of affection and a kiss that lasts longer than your willingness to keep your eyes open. You know he'll be with you through your sleep, be with you when you wake. 

He'll be there. He's part of you, and you're part of him; nothing can change that.

* * *

_Jake._

"Jake. Are you awake yet?" When you don't answer, you feel John shift away from where his back's pressed against yours. Sitting up, most likely. "Jake?" 

"I'm awake _now._ " You're not even going to attempt to sit up yet. Rolling over is all you can manage. "Bloody fucking christmas, everything hurts..." 

After a moment John leans over you, setting your glasses on your chest despite the fact that he hasn't actually located his own yet. (Or at least not put them on.) When you settle the glasses on your nose, his face comes into good enough focus that you can read the worry on his face. "Need me to go find the painkillers?" 

"I think I'll give it a minute...it might go away when I get up." 

"You're getting up?" 

"Oh fuck no." 

When he snorts and plops back down beside you, you can't help but grin. His next words wipe that off your face, unfortunately. 

"So if that dumb shit was our worst fears, I'm terrified of having all of you ditch me in a house with nothing ever happening again and no one giving a shit." How the hell can he keep his tone so light? You know him well enough to know that the causal tone takes a hell of a lot of effort to maintain, but still. You're amazed he manages it at all. "How about you?" 

How about you indeed. 

( _Every prophecy you've ever made and then twisted to avert disaster, rewritten a thousand times worse. Dirk with his throat torn apart. The safehouse taken by demons who want nothing from your friends but blood and everything from you that you don't want to give. Dave dead, his corpse mounted on the wall like some kind of trophy while his brother looks at you like you're not even human. And really, are you, at that point?_ ) 

"Jake?" John nudges your side until you turn your head to look at him, raising his eyebrows when you do. "You okay?" 

"Erm." None of that was real, you remind yourself. You knew that it wasn't even when you were still experiencing the vision. Actually, you think you might be the only one who managed to keep a handle on reality while it was happening...although that didn't help you escape the vision. "I should be in a bit. Were you going to get up?" 

You know that John's going to mimic your accent even before he does it. There's something in the way he grins, like he knows he's about to make a fool of himself rather than you. 

"Oh fuck no," he says, and you roll your eyes and smack him for the impersonation. You smack him very gently, because you're still thanking every one of the powers that be that he's here with you now.

* * *

_D._

Davesprite twitches and whimpers in your lap, and that's all it really takes to jolt you out of your light sleep. Like, most of the time you'd barely even register anything short of an actual firearm going off in the same room as you, but right now is a special fucking occasion. 

Plus you don't sleep quite as deep when you're sitting up, even if you are leaning against Grey on one side. So when the cockatrice whimpers, you open your eyes, freeing your arms from Gale on one side and Grey on the other to shake Davesprite gently, catching his wrists when he jerks his hands up to claw at your shirt. 

"Kiddo, hey. It's me. It's just me." You keep your voice low, half so you don't wake up the others and half in an attempt to soothe the one who's already awake. You kind of think you completely fucking fail at the latter, though, because he lets out a breathless lil' caw and jerks away from you, grabbing at your hands to keep from toppling off the couch. "Shit, Davesprite—" 

" _No—_ " 

"It's okay, man, it's a dream, okay? They're gone, just—" 

You stop because he's twisted his hands out of your grip again, and he's...fumbling to get his shirt off. Okay. You watch for a second to be sure that that's what he's trying to do; then you brush his hands aside and pull the thing up over his head for him, pausing for a second to let his wings phase through the fabric before you pull it all the way off and set it on Grey's lap. 

As soon as it's off Davesprite reaches over his shoulder, one wing half-spreading so he can reach the spot where feathers fade into pale skin. It's the left one, and you know what he's trying to feel almost immediately. 

You reach behind him and run your fingers over the nasty little scar, smooth down the tiny down feathers that grew in bleached over where the HDB asshole cut him. As you trace the scar, Davesprite relaxes all at once, slumping forward against your chest again. 

"It's still there?" he whispers. 

"Yeah. It's still there." 

"Because in that fucking vision it wasn't, D. He didn't go for me first, he went for—fuck, it was fuzzy. Everything was hazy but him killing Dirk, or you, or Dave...I think I saw it more than once." Davesprite ends that sentence with a chirp, relaxing a little bit more when you move your other hand up to stroke through his feathery hair. "Seemed like it lasted forever. Eight minutes on the goddamn clock, and that bastard had time to kill you all, take me back and lock me up again." 

"I'm never gonna let that happen to you again, man—" 

"If you were gonna say that you'd die before you let it happen, maybe don't. Like, I know you would, that's the whole fucking point." He shivers and nuzzles against you until you stop tracing his scar and wrap that arm around him, holding him tight and safe. "Don't you _dare_ die." 

"I won't, don't worry." 

"Dirk either. Or Hal. Or Dave." 

"I'll keep 'em safe too." 

"Or Grey, or John or Jake—" 

"Nobody's gonna die, Davesprite. 's gonna be okay." 

He raises his head to look up at you, blinking a couple times to get those bright orange eyes at least kind of clear of tears. "Promise?" 

"Promise. You'll always be with us, and we'll keep each other safe. Always." 

And yeah, that's a promise you know you can and will keep.


End file.
